Interest, Fear, and Honor, by Thomas Donnelly

8/10/2019 Interest, Fear, and Honor, by Thomas Donnelly

1/13

US Foreign Policy in

a Turbulent Pacific

Hoover Institution Working Group on Military History


2/13

A HOOVER INSTITUTION ESSAY ON US FOREIGN POLICY IN A TURBULENT PACIFIC

Interest, Fear, and HonorTHOMAS DONNELLY

The Meaning of Chinas Ascent

There are two prisms through which to v iew Chinas rise to great-power status. Politicalscience and structural analysis provide one set of lenses; history and strategic cultureprovide another. Alas, fairly considered, neither provides much reason to think that thePeoples Republic will mature as a responsible stakeholder in the liberal international orderpromulgated by the United States that is the framework for economic progress in Chinaand across maritime East Asia.

Princetons Aaron Friedberg has been at the forefront in making the structural argumentabout the dangers inherent in Chinas rise. His 2011 book A Contest for Supremacy: China,

America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia is a summary not only of his own writing butthat of political scientists more generally. The rivalry provoked by Chinas rise results notfrom easily erased misperceptions or readily correctable policy errors. Rather, it is driveninstead by forces that are deeply rooted in the shift ing structure of the international systemand in the very different political regimes of the two Pacic powers. Nor is this rivalrysimply a quirk of current circumstance:

Throughout history, relations between dominant states and rising ones have been uneasy

and often violent. Established powers tend to regard themselves as the defenders of an

international order that they helped to create and from which they continue to benet;

rising powers feel constrained, even cheated, by the status quo and struggle against it to

take what they think is rightfully theirs. 1

Friedberg never goes so far as to decree the contest to be inevitably violent. But he doesassert that Chinas purpose is to win that is, establish itself as the hegemonic poweracross East Asia without ghting. Nor does he believe that trade and economicinterconnectedness will, by itself, serve to limit Chinese ambitions. Given his analysis,it is hardly a surprise that he recommends traditional balance-of-power methods,including a strengthened US posture in the region and what amounts to a strategy ofdeterrence if not a Cold-War-style policy of containment.

Even though Friedberg allows that China and the United States have antipatheticpolitical regimes, his argument stresses the structural differences rather than particularcharacteristics. Yet the phenomenon of Chinas rise has given birth to a huge numberof works limning Chinese strategic culture. Although the number of explanations ofChinese behavior probably exceeds the number of works, they do share an idea of Chinaas a singular and unique power still shaped by its imperial past. To Edward Luttwak,


3/13

2

Thomas Donnelly Interest, Fear, and Honor

these historical residues in Chinese conduct are reections of the Tianxia, the all underheaven that radiated outwardly from the emperor himself, giving order to the world,conrming the distinction between stable tributary states and the barbarians beyond.The effect was and remains a Sinocentric approach to strategy, which Luttwak describesas a kind of great-power autism that allows Chinese leaders to look away from the need

for domestic reforms. In the end, Luttwak also argues for a US and coalition strategy ofdeterrence but not a policy of containment. 2

Sinologists Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell advance a more diffuse concept of strategicculture driven by Chinas geographic vulnerability, emphasizing the weaknesses as well asthe strengths inherent in being the Middle Kingdom. In their reckoning, imperial mandateis not a rigid imperative but a tributary framework that provides China with a repertoireof [strategic] options. 3

Sinocentrism was an idea sufciently malleable that it could facil itate trade and legitimate

a range of diplomatic practices. The maritime subculture provided precedents of pragmatic

egalitarianism that China can draw on when it needs to. We have to analyze present

realities to explain when and how Sinocentric elements have remained useful in Chinese

diplomatic practice and when and how they have not. 4

Given this somewhat Polonius-like assessment of Chinese strategic culture, Nathan andScobell have a more optimistic view of Chinas future. They believe that China and theUnited States can establish a new equilibrium and that China has good reasons for choosingthis course. Further, they write, Even as the countrys military grows, it will continueto need to invest in domestic security and territorial defense, which will make it hard toproject force on a large scale far from its borders. 5 Thus, where Luttwak sees Sinocentrismas a destabilizing and dangerous form of strategic autism, Nathan and Scobell believeBeijings domestic obsessions will moderate its international behavior.

No survey of the strategic culture school would be complete without considering the viewsof Henry Kissinger, who, more than anyone, has shaped American views of China for severalgenerations. Kissinger is a resolute Middle Kingdomist, asserting in On China (Clausewitzianin its authoritative rhetoric as well as in t itle) that [a]ny attempt to understand Chinastwentieth-century diplomacy or its twenty-rst-century world role must begin even atthe cost of some potential oversimplication with a basic appreciation of the traditionalcontext. 6

China is singular. No other country can claim so long a continuous civilization, or such

an intimate link to its ancient past and classical principles of strategy and statesmanship.

Other societies, the United States included, have claimed universal applicability for

their values and institutions. Still, none equals China in persisting and persuading its

neighbors to acquiesce in such an elevated conception of its world role for so long, and


4/13

3

Hoover Institution Stanford University

in the face of so many historical vicissitudes. From the emergence of China as a unied

state in the third century B.C. until the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912, China stood

at the center of an East Asian international system of remarkable durability. 7

But whether understood as an emanation of internal and cultural motivations or as a

response to external and structural independent variables, an assertion of claims made inthe distant past or the result of rapid economic expansion and growing military might,there can be little doubt that Chinas rise represents an undeniable and inherent challengeto the current international system globally as well as regionally and to the UnitedStates as the guarantor of that system and its stability, shared prosperity, and broad politicalliberty. Even the creation of a new equilibrium would represent a profound shift in thebalance of power as well as a precarious condominium between profoundly differentregimes.

Chinas Strategic Neighborhood(s)

From both a structural and cultural perspective, the odds on achieving equilibriumlengthen when the geopolitical aperture is opened to take in the secondary and lesserpowers whose interests are entangled in Chinas rise. This is true not only for Chinas EastAsian littoral neighborhood but in continental Asia and, in fact, globally. In consideringChinas effects on its neighbors, it may be necessary to begin with its maritime nearabroad, but sufciency can only be found through a larger reckoning, which this paper canonly hint at. Chinese strategy for the region is an attempt to revive a quasi-tributary setof relationships by dividing East Asian states from the United States, dividing the regionagainst itself often by stoking anti-Japanese resentments and establishing a new,

Beijing-centered order of tranquility.

Chinas territorial disputes with Japan represent the most proximate and profoundlydangerous tensions in East Asia and reect both structural and cultural imperatives inChinese strategy making. Japan is the wealthiest and most powerful state in maritimeEast Asia, and its alliance with the United States makes it the central pillar of Americasposition in the western Pacic. Moreover, Chinas antipathy toward Japan is deeplyrooted, originating in the late nineteenth century when Chinas Qing collapse intertwinedwith Japans Meiji modernization; Japans rise is an essential element in Chinas sense ofhistorical humiliation. Imperial Japans expansion into China from the 1930s through the

end of World War II, and the atrocities which attended it, exacerbated Chinas hatred of Japan. The establishment of US hegemony in the region leaves China still resentful andserves as a strong motivation to change the status quo.

Thus, this past February, two months after Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited theYakusuni Shrine honoring Japanese war dead but also the resting place of several WorldWar II war criminals, Fu Yung, the chair of the foreign affairs committee of Chinas Peoples


5/13

4


National Congress, told the Munich Security Conference that Beijings relationship withTokyo was at its worst and that the Chinese were prepared to respond effectively to anyprovocation that threatened the order of tranquility in the region. Until [the Japanese]can take off the burden of history they keep on carrying on themselves, its very hard forthem to become a constructive member of [an] Asian partnership. 8 Indeed, in the weeks

preceding Abes Yakusuni visit, the Chinese had asserted an air defense identication zonein the East China Sea that also covered small islands belonging to Japan. In sum, China-

Japan tensions have a logic of their own, independent and predating Chinas rise or Abeselection but also one inseparable from the US role in the region.

Beijings successful efforts to improve ties with South Korea which, at the time ofPresident Xi Jinpings state visit to Seoul, the Chinese described as hot in economy, warmin politics and as having global strategic signicance mark a recent initiative drivenby Chinas regional divide-and-rise strategy, increased instability in North Korea, and theRepublic of Koreas desire not to be caught between the United States and China. Duringhis visit, Xi was also at pains to emphasize common mistrust of Abe and shared historicalenmity toward Japan. 9

Particularly under President Park Geun-hye, Seoul has attempted to fashion a bridgingstrategy and avoid a zero-sum, either-or posture vis--vis China and America. Its unclearwhether such a happy outcome can be achieved or the strategy sustained; warier [Korean]voices fear that Seoul is on a slippery slope that will ultimately envelop Korea in a China-centered political and economic order that will undermine Americas parallel alliancearrangements in Northeast Asia. 10 That would seem to t neatly into Chinas strategicplan. It also gives the Peoples Republic a kind of Korea card to play in the regional gameof thrones one that sidesteps the costs of dealing with the unpredictable regime inPyongyang. As Beijing reviews its maritime East Asia front, Seoul appears as a bright spot.

Looking southward at Taiwan, a hoped-for bright spot must look increasingly dark. Beijinghoped that the return to power by the Kuomintang under President Ma Ying-jeou wouldput Taipei back on a path to inevitable reunication, and indeed Ma has often been anapparently pliant partner. But, if anything, the Ma years which may be numbered; hisapproval ratings rival those of the US Congress conrm that the prospects for peacefulreunication, or even reunication by intimidation short of the actual use of militaryforce, are not great. In this regard, the Taiwanese reaction to Chinese attempts to suppressdemocracy in Hong Kong, and the tremendous protests they have sparked, reects arejection of any one country, two-systems solution; when a KMT-run Mainland AffairsCouncil expresses its regret about Beijings policies, its an expression of deep anger. TheTaiwanese have no wish to forgo their democratic forms of government or the sotto vocebut de facto independence that is the guarantee of that government. Neither deep trade tiesnor Chinese soft power nor an increasingly overwhelming military balance has served tomove Taiwan much closer to buckling to Beijings desires. Taiwans political identity, even


6/13

5


among the KMT, is no longer simply Sinocentric. Like Japan, Taiwan remains a source oftension with China, driven by its own internal dynamic.

Likewise, the tensions created in Southeast Asia, particularly between China and the statesrimming the South China Sea, are shaped by a mix of structural and political-cultural

factors. Chinas growing military capability and capacity threaten not just the geopoliticaland economic interests in the region but also touch a changing sense of self-regard ofnational honor in places such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and even the Philippines. A quicktour of the regional horizon reveals the durability of long-standing divisions but anincreased likelihood of conict.

Vietnamese resistance to a Sinocentric Southeast Asia began a thousand years ago and justa generation ago resulted in a brief but bloody border war that had little tangible strategicpurpose other than to satisfy Chinese amour propre. Although the current disputes overthe Spratly and Paracel island chains may or may not involve undiscovered but potentiallyvast energy resources, they certainly involve issues of sovereignty that run deep for theVietnamese, to the point where Hanoi is investing heavily to upgrade its submarine eet,irting with the United States in search of expanded military ties, and hinting at a moresubstantive strategic partnership. 11

Similarly, the Philippines increasingly view themselves as a front-line state facing Chineseexpansionism. Burdened with colonial memories, a fragile democracy, and a stagnanteconomy, the Philippines have nonetheless increasingly welcomed a renewed US militarypresence that is being shifted from an anti- salast counterterrorism focus to broader andmore explicitly anti-Chinese purposes. 12

Indonesia and Singapore, too, have been shaken out of their traditional hedging-bridging strategies in response to Chinas aggressive actions, even if they do not yet feeldirectly threatened. Both retain a prickly sense of postcolonial independence, one that,in Indonesias case, is buttressed by Jakartas ongoing effort at national consolidationand centralization as well as a passionate and recent embrace of democratic governanceas the key to unity. Like the Philippines, Indonesia is gradually leveraging a successfulcounterterror partnership with the US military to modernize its regular forces with aview toward operations in and above the South China Sea and to subordinate its forces tocentral and civilian control. Singapore has long relied on close military ties to the UnitedStates and in recent years has rebuilt its port to accommodate US Navy sized carriers

and has agreed to serve as home port for Littoral Combat Ships and is preparing to makea substantial purchase of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. 13

Increasing tensions in East Asia have, during the past decade and through changes ofgoverning party, conrmed Australia in its traditional strategies of forward defense and


7/13

6


strategic partnership with the United States. In a series of defense white papers stretchingback to 2009, and in a 2014 effort anticipating a new white paper next year, the defenseministry has concluded that Australias strategic environment has become more complexas a larger number of countries (language that is, primarily, a euphemism for China butalso accounts for the regional response) grow in economic and military power and seek to

shape their strategic environment. 14 In sum, with the possible exception of Malaysia, whichis mired in domestic political uncertainty and faces a growing salast tendency of its own,Chinas rise and its increasingly adventurous behavior touch on both the security interestsand the various domestic political cultures of Southeast Asian states in a way that presagescontinued if not increasing tensions and prospects for crisis and conict.

Plotting Chinas strategic landscape would be incomplete without at least a cursorydiscussion of its most traditional concern continental Asia and its expanding globalactivities, not least those that reach toward Russia, into the Indian Ocean, and toward theMiddle East. In each case, tensions are rising, and the prospects for involvement in regionalconicts if only through quasi-proxies or as an offshore but interested great power should be weighed. Begin with Central Asia, the historical source of the invading hordeswho have been the special btes noires of Chinese strategists. Beijings relations with thelong-lived, post-Soviet autocrats who rule these khanates are in pretty good condition

there is a shared political philosophy and something of an entente with Russia bothBeijing and Moscow agree that the rst order of business is to isolate the region fromthe West, particularly the United States. But Beijings imperial desire to suppress its ownMuslim population, the Uighurs of Xinjiang Province, and its policy of changing theprovinces demographics by planting Han Chinese there, is not only creating internalproblems but creating an opening for salast terror groups. Although, to many in the West,enlisting China in the campaign against Al Qaeda and its afliates sounds like a stroke ofKissingerian genius, a counterinsurgency with Chinese characteristics threatens to be acure worse than the disease. For the moment, the most likely explanation of rising violencein Xinjiang remains Uighur nationalism, or split-ism as the Chinese still call it. Theresa lot more veil-wearing than there used to be, a lot more face-covering than there used tobe, a lot more beards than there used to be, says Rian Thum, a Uighur expert at LoyolaUniversity in New Orleans. But I dont see any direct connection between that and, say,the attack on the market in Urumqi or the train station attack [in Kunming]. 15 It evenseems probable that the Chinese government is casting an Islamist veil over the situationto obscure its purposes and framing its plans in a way that will resonate internationally.Whatever the Uighurs motivation, the trend toward sectarianism and internationalizationof the conict is notable; to the degree that China plays a bigger role in the global struggleto suppress violently political Islamist groups, it will likely be with a heavy hand and,equally, with effects that extend rather than end the conict. The United States does notneed another radicalized and violent Sunni people, even one that originates on the farthestside of the world.


8/13

7


But over the long term, and perhaps including Japan, the most consequential set oftensions created by Chinas rise may be those that involve India. There have been multipleSino-Indian wars and continuing disputes in continental Asia. But Chinas growingability to project naval power into and across the Indian Ocean the Peoples LiberationArmy/Navy has just sent an attack submarine to join counterpiracy operations in the Gulf of

Aden and its growing string of pearls basing arrangements with the likes of Pakistan andSri Lanka are opening a new theater of tension and potential confrontation. In response,India has begun to reform and modernize its military, particularly its air force and navy;that effort is a high priority for Indias new and nationalistic Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Indias strategy-making apparatus is creaky, and its Pakistan-rst traditions will be hard toshake for very good reasons. An emerging neo-Curzonian sentiment in New Dehli arguesin favor of a more vigorous and traditional, if still independent and nonaligned, form offorward strategy that is commensurate not only with Indias changing assessment of itssecurity interests but also with its self-regard as an aspiring great power.

Lastly, it is hard to imagine that, as a global actor with a desperate need for cheap andplentiful and cleaner-than-coal energy imports, despite its much ballyhooed gas dealwith Russia, 16 Beijing can resist the sucking force of the chaos and power vacuum that markthe Persian Gulf and the Arab Middle East. Despite their neuralgia about state sovereignty,their past temptations to play all sides of the fence in the region, and that they are likelyto be even more clueless (and less experienced) about the deep currents of regional politicsthan the United States, Britain, and France combined, the Chinese can no more stick toa hands-off, let-it-burn posture than the Obama administration. The temptation to dostupid stuff in the Middle East respects no borders and has long been a measure of globalpower; the region is simply too important not to meddle. The Chinese will be damned ifthey dont either because the United States will reassert its power in ways that potentiallythreaten Chinese interests or the United States does not or cannot successfully do so anddamned if they do by stepping into a quagmire. Although its impossible to foresee howor when China will become enmeshed in the region, its probable that it will and certainthat, when it does, it wont mark the end of tensions or even conict; the region is moreviolent and unstable than at any time since World War II.

Taken altogether, the vision of a twenty-rst-century Sinocentric order or, moreeuphemistically, an international balance of power that favors Chinese interests, is blurredby troubles at every point of the compass. Not only are there structural geopolitical andgeographical disputes but domestic political cultural dynamics among its neighbors areinhospitable to anything in the way of tributary arrangements. In particular, ChinasEast Asian neighbors seem not to have gotten the word perhaps they dont read enoughThomas Friedman op-eds that fractious democracies are out and efcient strong menand one-party rule are in.


9/13

8


Americas Role

In the late spring, a small group of American pundits and scholars traveling to Tokyo wasgranted an audience with Shinzo Abe. What was supposed to be a grip-and-grin photo-opdeveloped into a lengthy discussion when the Japanese prime minister asked why PresidentObama had failed to impose consequences on Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad for crossingthe redline over the use of chemical weapons. 17 Japan has no direct security interest in theSyrian civil war, but Abe was deeply worried that US credibility the key to the balance ofpower and continued stability in maritime East Asia had suffered a heavy blow.

Abes concern came despite or perhaps even in part because of the administrationsmuch-lauded Pacic pivot, or, as it pleased the White House to rebrand the policy, arebalancing toward the region. From the vantage point of late 2014, Obamas foreign policy,patterns of strategy making and deep cuts to US military power look less like a pivot or ashift and more like a global withdrawal. This is not only upsetting regional balances of

power

in Europe and the Middle East as well as South and East Asia

but casting doubtsabout the United States role as the system administrator, the rule maker of the internationalorder. The prominence of emerging Republican politicians who irt with isolationist,America-rst rhetoric do little to reassure allies or check adversaries that the current retreatis a onetime, Obama-only phenomenon.

The questions are not limited to issues of American will power. Outside western Europe,the doctrines of soft power and smart power gain little tract ion; where tensions are high,hard power military power remains the coin of the realm. The world can count. Whenit counts US defense capacity it sees military services that are shrinking rapidly and, thanks

to the 2011 Budget Control Act, on a hard-to-derail track to pre World War II levels. In theObama years alone, the defense department will have lost about a trillion and a half dollarsof purchasing power. The recent report of the independent and bipartisan National DefensePanel concluded that the losses had created a dangerous gap between strategic needs andmilitary means:

This gap is disturbing if not dangerous in light of the fact that global threats and

challenges are rising, including a troubling pattern of territorial assertiveness and regional

intimidation on Chinas part, the recent aggression of Russia in Ukraine, nuclear

proliferation on the part of North Korea and Iran, a serious insurgency in Iraq that both

reects and fuels the broader sectarian conicts in the region, the civil war in Syria,and civil strife in the larger Middle East and throughout Africa. 18

The effect on the US defense posture in the western Pacic is easily calculable. Eventhough the United States plans to shift 60 percent of its eet to the Pacic, budget and forcereductions will soon result in fewer ships in the theater than there are now. 19 Moreover, thecontinuing crises in the Persian Gulf and Middle East will in effect diminish force presence


10/13

9


and lengthen response times; the eet may be stationed in the Pacic but will often beoperating in the Middle East. This is equally true of army, air force, and marine forces.

Indeed, the US posture in maritime East Asia became a bill payer for defense reductionseven before the end of the Cold War, particularly in Southeast Asia. Although the

decision to withdraw from the Philippines in the late 1980s was more than justied andgeopolitically wise in the context of the time (the withdrawal was complete by 1992), it ispainfully ironic to see the Filipinos trying to nd some way to reverse course now. The lossof Clark Air Force Base and the Subic Bay Naval Complex created a military operationaland geostrategic vacuum that has, in recent years, proved an irresistible temptation to thePeoples Liberation Army/Navy. The Chinese can now put substantial naval forces intothe South China Sea and, beyond that, dwarf the capability and capacity of the naviesof the region and threaten Americas ability to project power into the region to eitherdeter or respond to a crisis. The combination of Chinas rising capability and capacity andUS operational absence plus an eroding technological and qualitative advantage hasalready created serious strategic and geopolitical uncertainties.

To one degree or another, this pattern is being repeated throughout Chinas neighborhoodsof strategic interest: Northeast Asia, Taiwan, the Indian Ocean, and farther aeld. Even inthe Middle East, where Chinese inuence is indirect and capabilities limited, the net effectis to increase tensions at the margin. No one knows what China might do in any givensituation, but thats the point: the loss of US military preeminence is a key ingredient inmany recipes for mischief.

Inevitable or No?

No one with the slightest sense of military history would tolerate a prediction that thetensions created by Chinas rise would inevitably lead to conict in any of its manyneighborhoods. Divining which of the many elements and actors in play will be dispositiveis a little like trying to determine the single cause of the Peloponnesian War: Was itAthens imperial rise? Spartan fear? The desire for honor? Nonetheless, the arithmetic isintimidating: the sheer number of potential disputes is impressive. Divergent interests, deep-seated fears, and antipathetic national political cultures mark the course of Chinas ascent.As the Dragon rises, the world does shake but does not yet fall to its knees.

NOTES

1 Aaron Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York:W.W. Norton and Company, 2011), 1.

2 Edward N. Luttwak, The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy (Cambridge and London: Belknap Press ofHarvard University Press, 2012), 2, 13 23, 24870.


11/13

10


3 Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell, Chinas Search for Security (New York: Columbia University Press,2012), 2327.

4 Ibid., 27.

5 Ibid., 356.

6 Henry Kissinger, On China (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 3.

7 Ibid., 2.

8 Patrick Donahue, China-Japan Relations Reach Low Point, Chinese Official Says, BloombergBusinessweek, www.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-01/china-japan-relations-reach-low-point-chinese-official-says.

9 See, for example, Jonathan D. Pollack, The Strategic Meaning of China-ROK Relations: How Far Will theRapprochement Go and with What Implications? Brookings Institution Assn. Institute for Policy Studies,September 29, 2014.

10 Ibid., 4.

11 See Carl Thayer, Vietnam Gradually Warms Up to U.S. Military, The Diplomat, November 6, 2013,

http://thediplomat.com/2013/11/vietnam-gradually-warms-up-to-us-military.

12 See Richard Javad Heydarian, The Philippines-China-U.S. Triangle: A Precarious Relationship,The National Interest, May 1, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-philippines-china-us-triangle-precarious-relationship-10342.

13 Robyn Klingler Vidra, The Pragmatic Little Red Dot: Singapores U.S. Hedge against China, LondonSchool of Economics, www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/publications/reports/pdf/sr015/sr015-seasia-vidra-.pdf.

14 Defence Issues Paper 2014: A discussion paper to inform the 2015 Defence White Paper, Australian Ministryof Defense, www.defence.gov.au/whitepaper/docs/defenceissuespaper2014.pdf.

15 Brent Crane, Resisting Beijing for God or Country? The American Interest, September 28, 2014,www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2014/09/28/resisting-beijing-for-god-or-country.

16 See Derek Scissors, Sino-Russian gas deal is largely fake, www.aei-ideas.org/2014/05/sino-russian-gas-deal-is-largely-fake.

17 Author interview with Gary Schmitt and William Kristol.

18 William Perry and Gen. (ret.) John Abizaid, Ensuring a Strong U.S. Defense for the Future, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2014), viii.

19 See Statement of Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, Before the House ArmedServices Committee, September 18, 2013, http://news.usni.org/2013/09/18/document-cno-greenerts-sept-18-2013-testimony-house-armed-services-committee.


12/13

11


The publisher has made this work available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license 3.0. To view a copyof this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0.

Hoover Institution Press assumes no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partyInternet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or willremain, accurate or appropriate.

Copyright 2014 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University


13/13

Hoover Institution, Stanford University434 Galvez MallStanford, CA 94305-6010

Hoover Institution in WashingtonThe Johnson Center1399 New York Avenue NW, Suite 500

Working Group on the Role of Military Historyin Contemporary Conflict

The Working Group on the Role of Military History inContemporary Conict examines how knowledge of pastmilitary operations can inuence contemporary publicpolicy decisions concerning current conicts. The carefulstudy of military history offers a way of analyzing modernwar and peace that is often underappreciated in this age oftechnological determinism. Yet the result leads to a morein-depth and dispassionate understanding of contemporarywars, one that explains how particular military successesand failures of the past can be often germane, sometimesmisunderstood, or occasionally irrelevant in the contextof the present.

The core membership of this working group includes David

Berkey, Peter Berkowitz, Max Boot, Josiah Bunting III, AngeloM. Codevilla, Thomas Donnelly, Admiral James O. Ellis Jr.,Colonel Joseph Felter, Victor Davis Hanson (chair), Josef Joffe,Frederick W. Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, Edward N. Luttwak,Peter Mansoor, General Jim Mattis, Walter Russell Mead, MarkMoyar, Williamson Murray, Ralph Peters, Andrew Roberts,Admiral Gary Roughead, Kori Schake, Kiron K. Skinner, BarryStrauss, Bruce Thornton, Bing West, Miles Maochun Yu, andAmy Zegart.

For more information about this Hoover Institution Working Group

visit us online at www.hoover.org/research-topic/military.

About the Author

THOMAS DONNELLY

Thomas Donnelly is a writer onmilitary affairs and codirectorof the Marilyn Ware Center forSecurity Studies at the AmericanEnterprise Institute. He haswritten and edited numerous books,essays, and articles, includingOperation Just Cause: The Storming of

Panama; Ground Truth : The Futureof U.S. Land Power; The Military WeNeed; and Operation Iraqi Freedom:

A Strategic Assessment. From 1995 to1999, he was policy group directorand a professional staff member forthe House Committee on ArmedServices. Donnelly also served as amember of the US-China Economicand Security Review Commission.He is a former editor of Armed

Forces Journal, Army Times, and Defense News.

Documents

Interest, Fear, and Honor, by Thomas Donnelly